


Retrograde Motion

by Jaina (effervescible)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Happy Endings Are More Complicated Than They Seem, Post-Canon, Weird Brothers, post-kh3, speculative future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 05:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16191002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effervescible/pseuds/Jaina
Summary: When all is said and done, how do you decide your future when you've never before had the chance? After the second Keyblade War, Roxas and Sora take a moment between today and tomorrow.





	Retrograde Motion

When it was all said and done—and there had been a lot more _doing_ than _saying_ , in Roxas' estimation—winning the final clash between light and darkness and securing the safety of the worlds had gotten him everything he'd ever wanted. A heart that was only his, a place he belonged, and the chance to make his own future instead of being manipulated or forced into one someone else wanted him to have.

It made sense for him to be happy, for the first time in a long time, and he was, more or less. But he also felt…unsettled? He couldn't put a name to the feeling, which settled in his stomach as he packed up his knapsack. He had the space and silence to dwell on it in between folding shirts and crawling under the bed to look for anything that might have been dropped on the floor and rolled there.

He was still there — his backside sticking out from under across from the tiny bedroom's door — when he heard a clatter of footsteps rushing up the staircase on the other side. Roxas knew immediately who it had to be, and while he could have attributed that to some innate connection that remained between two people who used to be one, the truth was that there was no one else here likely to have _that_ much energy after running all the way to the top of the mystical tower.

"Roxas! Hey, are you—oh, sorry."

"Sora?" He scooted backward as quickly as he could, then hopped to his feet. "Hey. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah! Never better. Uh, Roxas, you've got a thing..." His (former?) other half had a funny look on his face, like he was trying not to laugh or waiting until Roxas would laugh with him, and gestured toward the spikes of his own hair.

"What? Oh." He brushed at his head blindly, prompting several dust bunnies to fall to the floor. Apparently the enchanted brooms he'd occasionally seen cleaning the tower didn't do under the beds. 

"Thanks. I was getting this."

He held up the small, round synthesis item that sparkled in an unusual way, signaling its magical nature more than any amount of glitter ever could. He couldn't remember what it was called, only that one of the moogles in Radiant Guardian had sold it to him, claiming that it would enhance the potency of Keyblade wielders' spells. Maybe it had; they'd all made it through the final conflict alive and whole, some more than ever before. The victory had been decisive enough that in the aftermath, an object of supposedly potent magical power could roll beneath furniture and not be missed.

Sora laughed. "You could probably sell that back, but don't expect to get much munny. It only goes one way with those guys." That much Roxas knew to be true. The moogles that lived in the world of light offered deals no more frequently than the one that had made a place for itself in the Castle That Never Was. Before he could do more than offer his own rueful chuckle, Sora's gaze shifted to the mostly-full knapsack on the bed. "So you're really going, huh?"

Roxas was quiet for a moment before answering. It had taken him a while to figure out what he was going to do when everything was finished — or maybe it was that he hadn't thought about it until the prospect of having a future became real, something he could almost reach out and grasp instead of a nice idea that was insubstantial as a daydream.

He'd never been a hero like Sora. He still didn't feel like one, even after all they'd accomplished in ending Xehanort for good. But in the moment, when he'd awakened from his slumber inside Sora's heart with a body again, a will and a _life_ of his own again, joining the side of light had seemed like the only right thing to do. Maybe it was out of gratitude for what Sora had done to free him, or maybe he'd inherited more than just a Keyblade from his predecessors. But he hadn't hesitated to call his Keyblades and stand against the darkness, side by side with wielders who came before and after him.

For all their numbers, it hadn't been easy. He'd had bad dreams a few nights, about the clash of keys and the twisted, eerie light that been anything but cleansing. But when the dust settled, they'd won, and what they'd lost was less than what they'd saved. Only then had Roxas started to think about what might come next.

"Yeah," he said at last.

Sora nodded, and Roxas thought he saw his smile slip for a moment. "Need any help packing?" he asked, and dropped down to sit on the side of the bed, peering into the knapsack. "Wow, is that it? You don't have much in here."

"I don't have much at all," Roxas said. Clothes, a spare pair of sneakers, a book from the tower's library that he'd liked and Yen Sid said he could keep. There were still more possessions than he'd ever had in the Organization, when all he had was a number and a false sense of purpose. "Besides, anything I need I can buy in Twilight Town."

"C'mon, Roxas, you gotta look at the bigger picture." Sora rifled through the knapsack's contents a moment more than shook his head. "Like snacks. _Magic_ snacks. Bet you can't get those in Twilight Town."

Roxas wasn't sure if the snacks that could be had in the tower were actually magic, even if they were prepared by magic, but it was a fair point. "Okay, so I'll throw a few in," he said. "So what about you? Are you going home?"

"Mmm. I dunno. Probably not." Sora scratched his neck, looking away for a moment. "I mean, I want to," he continued. "But Master Yen Sid asked me to visit a few worlds to make sure things are all right there. Plus things are still kind of a mess _here_ , so I thought I should stick around for a while, you know?"

Roxas thought he saw guilt in Sora's eyes and wondered how, after everything he'd done for the worlds, he had any capacity for that particular emotion. Shouldn't he be able to do whatever he wanted for however long he wanted with no one to say he shouldn't? Couldn't he tell Yen Sid sorry, not this time? Maybe not. Maybe that was part of what made him a hero.

"You'll get there soon," he said. It wasn't true, of course. Or it might be, but Roxas had no way of knowing for sure. He still wanted to say it.

Sora looked back up at him, and the guilty expression dissolved into a smile. "Thanks," he said. Roxas was about to ask more about where the old wizard wanted Sora to go when he took a breath and continued. "You could come with me, you know. If you wanted."

Huh. Roxas blinked. "I can't, though," he said after a moment. "School's starting in Twilight Town next week, remember? Xion and I wanted to have a few days to get used to things first." Part of him wondered which of them would require a greater adjustment — her, because she'd never lived a normal life, or him, because the one he remembered living there was fake, and it still took some efforts to remind himself of that sometimes.

"Y-yeah, I know. Just forgot." Sora laughed, but there was an awkward note to it. Roxas had enough experience with awkwardness to recognize that. "Sorry."

"Sure," he said. He hesitated, half of him wanting to ask if Sora was okay and the other half wanting to leave things be. Before he could decide, though, Sora bounced back up to his feet and crossed the floor of the tiny room to look out the even tinier window. "Wow, it's really high up here. You can hardly see the ground," he said. "Is that why you picked the room all the way at the top, for the view?"

"I dunno," he said. "Maybe a little. I didn't think about it too much, though. It was free."

Was that the only reason, though? The idea nagged at him, even though he hadn't even thought about it until a second ago. He stepped closer, looking out at the sky past Sora. The colors were different here, peachy-orange fading into yellow and dark blue-black, but there was still a special quality to the the light, which was more vibrant and lovely than he'd seen in any other world except one.

Maybe Sora was closer to being right than he'd thought. Roxas hadn't thought about it, but maybe he'd felt it.  
"I guess it was," Sora said. He turned around, not meeting Roxas' eyes. A smile remained fixed on his face, but his gaze was cast low, sweeping over the dust-free floor. "I thought maybe you wanted to avoid us. Kinda dumb, huh?"

Roxas rocked back gently on his heels, more surprised by Sora having been that perceptive than he was by the question itself. Which was maybe the reason he answered it honestly. "No," he said. "It's not dumb. But — it's not exactly right, either. Sometimes I wanted some space for myself, yeah. But it was never about being _away_ from you guys."

He'd awakened to a world he could see with his own two eyes again, filled with things he could touch with his own two hands, when he had never expected to be able to do either. He'd gone from being a solitary wielder of a fabled weapon to one of many, and to stop everything from falling to darkness, he'd need to learn to fight with them, not by himself. He'd remembered that he _hadn't_ been alone, learned that precious friends could be found and lost and found again, and he'd inherited a much bigger destiny than he knew even if it wasn't really his. He'd learned that not even his face was truly his own.

Roxas had needed some time to himself now and then.

"I'm glad," Sora said, his expression softer now. "I mean, I wouldn't have blamed you! I figured you deserved some privacy, more than any of us. It's just, I thought we'd have more time."

"Time?" Roxas raised an eyebrow, not sure what he was getting at. Didn't they have nothing _but_ time now?

"You and me. To get to know each other for real."

What was it about Sora, Roxas wondered, that he could keep saying things that surprised him even when they shouldn't? And what was it about him, that he _was_ always surprised? 

"You probably know me better than anyone. You saw my memories," he pointed out, but Sora just shook his head.

"That's not the same thing. I didn't see all of them, and even if I did, memories aren't all there is to a heart," he said. "I wanna know _you_. What you're like when things aren't all crazy, what you like to do, all of that. I've wanted to know ever since I found out you existed, and I thought now we'd finally have the chance."

A heavy weight seemed to over Roxas' shoulders, then, softly — or maybe if was already there, and he was only just realizing it existed. He wasn't sure why he never noticed before. What did he say to that? He'd thought, when he'd had enough consciousness to have thoughts at all, that his story was done. Accepted it, even if he'd never wanted it, because he was Sora and Sora was him and a part of him went on. He hadn't considered that for Sora, the story had never finished. Maybe that was why he was here now.

"I wanted that too," he said. "Not the same way, but when I was with the Organization, I wanted to know who that boy was that I kept seeing in my head." _Remembering_. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly; back then, he hadn't even considered that what he saw might be memories. "When I left, I just wanted to know who I really was, which was almost the same thing. And then there was everything afterward."

Afterward, when he'd had the information but not the knowledge to put it all together. He'd had sorrow and anger and a sharp sense of injustice, and no time at all to sift through it and understand. That had come later, and even then it had been too late.

"It's like we're brothers. Really weird brothers, right?" Sora said, and chuckled. "I wanted to figure out what that meant. I didn't realize school was that important. Probably because it's been a while since I've gone."

That was right — he'd had a normal life, once, with normal school days and normal homework and normal summer vacations.

"It's not about school," Roxas said, drifting a few steps away to sit down on the edge of the bed. "Not completely."

"Huh? But you just said—"

"I know." Roxas nodded at the free space next to him, and the few seconds it took for Sora to join him gave just enough time to collect his thoughts. "If I tell you something, can you keep it to yourself?"

"Sure, Roxas. You can tell me anything." Sora's eyes were wide, his face serious.

He nodded. "I don't know if I can...do this whole 'normal' thing," he said. "I don't know if any of this is going to work out at all."

Sora frowned, and Roxas didn't have to be great at reading people to tell that it was out of confusion, not disapproval. "I thought that's what you wanted."

"It is — kind of — not exactly." He drummed his toes on the floor, trying to figure out how to say this, but he didn't feel like jumping onto his feet and leaving, like he would have with almost anyone else. Maybe Sora was that good of a listener, or maybe it was the almost-not-quite brothers thing that made a difference. "When I used to go to Twilight Town for missions, I used to see the kids who lived there and think they had it great. They knew who they were and where they were supposed to be every day. They didn't have to worry so much; they could just be with their friends every day. I had Axel and Xion, but I was still jealous. Everything about Hayner, Pence and Olette's lives seemed simpler. I wished that we could live that way, too."

He paused for a moment, but Sora just nodded. Either he wanted to hear everything Roxas had to say first, or he didn't know _how_ to react.

"Even if I had that kind of life, though, I wouldn't know how to live it," he continued after a moment. "I didn't know anything about school or how to talk to regular people or what to do with free time. That hasn't really changed. And don't say that I should know what it was like from living in the other Twilight Town, because that wasn't _me_. It was all fake."

"I wouldn't say that." Again Sora surprised him, this time by reaching out to squeeze his hand, just for a moment. He looked sad, and Roxas remembered that he wasn't the only one who'd had his memories forcibly changed, even if he was the only one who'd kept the fake ones. "You know you don't have to do it, right? Even if it's what you used to want. Xion would understand."

"I know," he said. "It's not for her. It's for me. I want to try being normal because...I want to _know_ , for sure, what it's like to live a normal life when it's really me doing the living." He let out a small huff of laughter. "I'm just not sure I'll be any good at it. Regular kids have parents and teachers and _rules_. Even when the Organization was using me as a tool, I never really had those. "

Visit the assigned world and destroy the daily quota of Heartless. Collect the precious entities they carried, build Kingdom Hearts. Help Xemnas acquire the kind of power that was one part of a grander plan but don't ask any difficult questions. Never push too hard to find out who you are.

Beyond that, he'd been free to do as he pleased. He'd had constraints, not rules. Roxas couldn't imagine dedicating his life to service of the worlds as a Keyblade master, but it was equally impossible to imagine giving it up. Keyblades weren't really alive, but Aqua and Terra had talked about how they chose their bearers, and he thought there was something to that. It certainly felt like part of him.

And for all that traveling from world to world hadn't been that novel back in the day — because he'd had nothing as a basis for comparison — Roxas couldn't think of endless days in Twilight Town and be sure that he'd never want to be elsewhere. After all, hadn't Sora felt an urge to travel and see new worlds, one that had been so strong that it resulted in...well, everything that had happened?

Sora nudged him with his elbow, distracting Roxas from his train of thought. "Hey," he said. "For what it's worth, I think you're gonna do fine. And if it doesn't make you happy, you'll figure out what does. I believe in you."

Roxas went still for a moment. They were just a few simple words, but when he said them like that, they were easy to believe. "Thanks, Sora."

"Anytime." After a moment, Sora hopped to his feet, gesturing for Roxas to follow. "C'mon, let's get some ice cream before you go. But it's not goodbye ice cream, 'cuz I'm going to come visit sometimes even if I have to hijack the gummi ship. I'll even help you with your homework."

Roxas laughed. "Thanks," he said, and it was _mostly_ sincere. "You don't have to steal a ship, though." He extended a hand, and a familiar whorl of dark energy rose coalesced out of thin air.

Sora's eyes went wide. "Whoa," he said. "I didn't know you could still do that. You're not a Nobody anymore. I figured you wouldn't be able to travel through the darkness anymore"

Roxas lowered his hand, letting the darkness fade, and shrugged. "I guess some things I learned stuck with me," he said. "And I've still got a coat. So if you ever get bored out there, or sit still for more than a few minutes, let me know. I can come visit you, too."

He must have said something right, because Sora's face lit up. "Can't wait," he said. "So, how about that ice cream?"

"You're on." Roxas opened the door to the staircase, and nodded for Sora to step through. "We'll go together."

**Author's Note:**

> The one prediction I'm willing to make about Kingdom Hearts 3 is that Roxas and Xion go to live and attend school in Twilight Town (with Lea attending parent-teacher conferences as their alleged guardian as needed.) But while I think that's something Roxas might want, I'm not convinced it would fit him — the Organization was a formative influence and he was effectively an emancipated minor, so I doubt it would be as simple as laying down arms and becoming a regular kid. So I wrote this to wrangle with the possibilities, and because I love Roxas and Sora actually getting the time to talk.


End file.
